vCloud consumer operations are tasks that the organization administrator wants to offload to a self-service operation. Performing the operation as a vCenter Orchestrator workflow provides an easy way to expose the operation to a customer through the built-in portal or a customized portal that leverages the web-services API. Many operations in this category can be satisfied directly through the vCloud Director web console. However, some operations affect multiple systems or fit better into a customer portal. These operations are natural candidates for an orchestration workflow. vCloud consumers do not have visibility into orchestration components, so the vCloud provider must initiate the workflow using the vCenter Orchestrator Client unless the provider creates a portal to serve as a front end to vCenter Orchestrator.

Example use cases include resetting of user account passwords on virtual machines using the VIX plug-in, placing a load balanced service into maintenance mode (stopping the service, removing it from the load balancing pool, and disabling monitors), loading certificates into virtual machines, and deploying instances of custom applications from the organization’s catalog.

vCenter Orchestrator can be used to create custom workflows at the vCloud API and vSphere levels. Other vCloud provisioning solutions frequently have built-in workflow functionality that integrates with vCloud Director through the vCloud API and is an alternative to vCenter Orchestrator.

See the VMware vCenter Orchestrator Documentation (http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/orchestrator_pubs.html) for additional information on installation, configuration, and workflow development:. Also see Workflow Examples for detailed examples of orchestrated workflows.